This chapter reviews what economists have learned about the impact of labor market institutions, defined broadly as government regulations and union activity on labor outcomes in developing countries. It finds that: (1) Labor institutions vary greatly among developing countries but less than...

Over the last 30 years, researchers have disputed the mixed evidence of the effect of the minimum wage on teenage employment in the United States. Whenever the minimum wage has positive or no effects on employment, they appeal to monopsony models to explain their results. However, very few of...

This paper examines whether the Action Plan for Promoting Employment and Combating Unemployment, a labor market intermediation program adopted by the Algerian government in 2008, reduced the informality of employment in Algeria. Using repeated cross-section data from the Household Survey on...

This paper studies the effects of minimum wages on informal and formal sector wages and employment in Indonesia between 1997 and 2007. Applying fixed-effects methods, the estimates suggest that minimum wages have a significant positive effect on formal sector wages, while there are no spillover...

The paper was produced as a background paper on labor issues for the UNDP study Convergence to the European Union: Challenges and Opportunities. It first looks at the issue of how the labor market institutions of an acceding country like Macedonia should be shaped to further the integration of...

The paper was produced as a background paper on labor issues for the UNDP study "Convergence to the European Union: Challenges and Opportunities." It first looks at the issue of how the labor market institutions of an acceding country like Macedonia should be shaped to further the integration of...

Recent research on the Great Depression emphasizes the role New Deal economic policy played in slowing recovery. Policies promoting cartels and higher wage rates during a time that the economy was experiencing unprecedented unemployment were likely to have created a negative supply shock that...

This paper examines whether the Action Plan for Promoting Employment and Combating Unemployment, a labor market intermediation program adopted by the Algerian government in 2008, reduced the informality of employment in Algeria. Using repeated cross-section data from the Household Survey on...

This study argues that aggregate demand management policies alone (which have traditionally been used to stabilize economies) may not be effective in the current crisis and argues that they should instead be implemented alongside labor market policies such as work sharing programs.The use of...